DRAGON BOAT PADDLERS TO COMPETE AT THE 2018 PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL DRAGON BOAT RACE AT WATERFRONT PARK

The race will be held on September 8 and 9, 2018 at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Sixty six teams comprised of 2,000 paddlers from across the US and Canada will compete in competitive and recreational race divisions.

(Portland, OR) The 2018 Portland International Dragon Boat Race will be held on Saturday, September 8 and Sunday, September 9, 2007 in the “Bowl” area of Tom McCall Waterfront Park just south of the Hawthorne Bridge.

Dragon boats are of Chinese historical influence, reaching back 2,300 years. Dragon boats are 45 feet long with a dragonhead on the bow and a tail on the stern. Twenty paddlers follow the pace of the drummer and are steered by a steersman, racing 500 meters.

The race is produced by DragonSports USA, a Portland non-profit organization with 2,500 members that paddle recreationally and competitively throughout the year. The teams at this year’s race include the Golden Dragons, a “55 years-old or older” team with an average age of 72 years; Blind Ambition, the nation’s only non-sighted team; and several cancer survivor teams including Portland’s Pink Phoenix Breast Cancer Survivor team.

The races will begin Saturday morning at 9:00 am. The Portland Fire Department is planning on saluting the opening of the race with their fireboat spraying water high into the sky along the race course.

The Public is invited to this event which will offer a variety of ethnic food vendors, a Beer Garden and espresso beverages. Dragon Boat Paddling is the ultimate team activity in which almost everyone of any physical ability can participate. An Information Booth will be on site providing suggestions on how to join a Dragon Boat team, costs and equipment involved.

Hello and welcome to the 2018 Portland Dragon Boat Festival! Hard to believe that the races are just three weeks away.

If you’re receiving this email, it’s because you registered your team. We also have a list of additional contacts that you may have provided and they're getting this email too. If anyone else needs to be receiving emails, please forward this to them and/or let us know who they are so we can include them in future communications.

We're working hard to get everything in order for another great weekend of racing. We have 66 Registered Teams (30 women, 36 mixed), and a tentative Schedule of Racing has been posted to our website this weekend. We will likely be making updates to the schedule for the Specialty Division races as we confirm participation over the next couple of weeks and we will have a final schedule out with the brackets the weekend before the race in early September, but don’t expect it to change too much from what we’ve put up online.

Thank you for reducing the amount of paperwork on our end by registering online. Now is the time to start assembling your Roster/Waiver Form and getting it signed by your teammates. After trying out an online roster and waiver system the past couple of years, we have decided to go back to a paper form... it's a lot less headache on our end until we can find a better online solution. We have attached a copy of the Roster/Waiver Form to this email and it is also posted online, with all of the other forms you may need for the weekend. Once your Roster/Waiver Form is complete, you may scan it in and send it back via email or bring it with you to the race venue on Friday, September 7th or, at the very latest, before the Pre-Race Meeting on Saturday. We do check to make sure these are all complete before letting you race, so if you can send them in early, it would help us tremendously. If you need to make changes after you submit your Roster/Waiver Form (or even after you've started gathering signatures), please use the separate Add/Delete Form, also attached. Minors and those that cannot sign the team signature page should use the Individual Waiver Form (attached). Please review the Roster/Waiver Form for instructions on preparing your Roster using Individual Waiver Forms.

As in prior years, we will be running 4-boat heats with two 500m seeding races on Saturday, and two guaranteed 500m races on Sunday (semi-finals then finals/consolation races). In addition to all of this, we have Specialty Division races plus our 2000m Races Around the Bridges.

What’s a Specialty Division race? We have eight of them, and it’s not too late to register for them if you haven’t already (subject to available space). The cost is $100 per division (the Corporate Cup, which carries additional promotional oppportunities, is $200). Teams are permitted to pair with other teams to fill boats for these races, but please only have one team register and pay the $100 (all participants must be rostered with a registered team). Here’s the rundown and the requirements for each and who has already registered/paid (please note that I've been on vacation the past two weeks, so if you have mailed payment, I will be checking the PO Box this week). No need to confirm unless your plans have changed.

Women’s Grandmasters Race – all paddlers must be women 50 years of age and older.

Golden Dragons Women (PAID)

Kent Ladies of the Lake (PAID)

Mixed Grandmasters Race – all paddlers must be 50 years of age and older with at least ten female paddlers

DragonMax (PAID)

Golden Dragons

Wasabi Grandmasters Mixed (PAID)

Women’s Masters Race – all paddlers must be women 40 years of age and older.

Amazon Dragons (PAID)

Bridge City (PAID)

Desert Dragons (PAID)

DragonMax Women (PAID)

FCRCC Saggin Dragons (PAID)

Seattle Flying Fire Dragons

Starbucks SAKE Women (PAID)

Mixed Masters Race – all paddlers must be 40 years of age and older with at least ten female paddlers

Bridge City (PAID)

DragonMax (PAID)

Kent Dragin' Tails (PAID)

Junior Race - All paddlers must be between 14 and 18 years of age, inclusive.

Wasabi Kraken (INCLUDED)

Zamboanga Aquarockets (INCLUDED)

Corporate Race - The team should be named after a sponsoring corporation. It is desired, but not required, that team members be employees of or otherwise affiliated with the sponsoring corporation as well.

KP Thriving Dragons (SPONSOR)

Starbucks Club SAKE (PAID)

Starbucks Waverunners (PAID)

Cancer Survivors Race - All paddlers should be cancer survivors and at least 14 years of age. Based on agreement of the participating teams, all paddlers must be women.

You may bring your own water, but we will have bottled water at the race site for all participants. Please remind everyone to bring a refillable/reusable water container (we will also have some race logo water bottles for sale) to cut down on waste.

We are again providing all teams with 10x10 canopies (property of DragonSports USA, please do not take home with you). The canopies will be staked and this is your assigned location. You may set up additional canopies, but please do not move from your assigned area. If you are hosting a visiting team, you will be next to each other. If your teams are part of a larger club, you will be next to each other. If you sent in a special request because of shared paddlers, coaching, or the like, you will be next to each other. It's quite the puzzle to figure it all out, so please send any (reasonable) last minute requests to us now.

Speaking of visiting teams, we're finalizing those pairings and will email host/visting teams seperately in the next few days. If any visiting teams would like to practice in our boats on Friday, contactscheduling@dragonsports.org. We know that you've all been in a dragon boat before, even our dragon boats, but if you or your tiller want to check out the boats you'll be racing in all weekend (they're Six-Sixteens, in case you were wondering), let our Scheduler know and we can have someone meet you personally down by the dock that day.

Local teams, we need your volunteer sign-ups this week! As a reminder, local teams must supply at least two volunteers to assist race weekend. You will be getting a separate email from the volunteer coordinators if we don't have your two volunteers, but here are the instructions to pass on:

2) Review the options listed and select "Sign Up" next to the spot(s) you like.

3) Click "Submit and Sign Up" at the bottom.

4) On the next page, you will be prompted to log in or create a SignUpGenius account. You do not need to create an account, but it is recommended that you do so if you need to make changes later.

5) Please complete the form as best as you can and please be sure to let us know if you do not see your team listed so we can go back and edit our form. Some fields are mandatory.

Finally, just a reminder that the safety of our paddlers on and off the water is our top priority, thus we ask that all participants understand and abide by the Race Rules published on our website. Please take time to review (or re-review, as the case may be) them before race weekend. To ensure that all participants have a rewarding and competitive experience, our second priority will be fairness—we hope that all participants walk away from this race satisfied with how it was conducted. With these two goals in mind, please bear with us if extra time is required to maintain safety and fairness.

That's it for now! Please let us know if you have any questions and we will be in touch with more details soon!